(Bloomberg) — Australia, the world’s biggest iron ore exporter, predicts a rally in prices may plateau and warned of risks to demand given the market’s reliance on China’s steelmaking industry.

© Bloomberg
Road trains travel along a highway near Port Hedland, Australia, on Monday, March 18, 2019. A two-day drive from the nearest big city, Perth, Port Hedland is the nexus of Australia’s iron-ore industry, the terminus of one of Australia’s longest private railways that hauls ore about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the mines of BHP Group and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. The line ran a record-breaking test train weighing almost 100,000 tons that was more than 7 kilometers long in 2001, and even normal trains haul up to 250 wagons of ore.

The seaborne market should see a “cooling” toward the end of 2020 and potential shifts in Chinese steel output are the main driver for the iron